As reported today by Joel Natalie and Philanthropy.com, 187 Erie groups have lost their tax-exempt status because they missed an IRS filing deadline. From the IRS:

The IRS has started publishing a list of organizations that have had their federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked for failing to file an annual information return or notice with the IRS for three consecutive years. The Automatic Revocation of Exemption List (Auto-Revocation List) is available in Adobe and Excel formats, and divided into separate lists by jurisdiction. The Auto-Revocation List provides the name, employer identification number (EIN), organization (subsection) code, last known address, effective date of revocation, and date on which the name was posted on IRS.gov.

Groups = stunned.

Here’s the Erie portion of the IRS list.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy says taxpayers should not worry if they have donated to one of these now tax-exempt groups. They say:

The IRS action came after Congress passed a law in 2006 to keep better track of groups that have tax-exempt status. The law gave organizations with annual revenue of $25,000 or less three years of tax-filing deadlines to comply. Organizations must file annual informational returns, though small groups must simply provide a few basic pieces of information.

If you have any information on any of these groups, defunct or not, leave a comment or use our contact form anonymously.